New Direction

"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son" - Animal House


Ok, maybe that's a bit harsh for this situation, but frankly the fat and stupid parts were really at the core of how I had been feeling lately.  Since my wedding last June, my focus, or lack there of, has lead to some frustrating results: weight gain, poorly written dissertation, and work anxiety, among other things. I just let myself spiral and it wasn't pretty.
That's why the month of March was one of New Directions (Glee reference intended). I've re-arranged (accapella pun intended!) my priorities (in life and with the dissertation in general). I decided that making the graduation deadline this year was not worth sacrificing a well-written dissertation.

So, after some deep conversations with my supportive hubby, mom, and best girls, I've decided to make some very important shifts of focus. Instead of worrying about things that I cannot control, I am focusing on three and only three things - my husband, my dissertation and my health. These priorities seem obvious and frankly, now they are and I'm disappointed that I didn't see how much my priorities had shifted over the last 6 months until it was staring me in the face. I thought I was focusing really well... but as it turned out I was focusing on at least 10 different things. That's at least 7 too many. So, I narrowed it down to 3 - Hubby, Heath and Dissertation. All the other stuff must wait until AFTER the dissertation.

I've always hear about people who "take stock" of what is going on in their life, but I'd never done it. Now, I have and it feels good. It's hard to stick to my 3 priorities, well the husband part isn't because he's been #1 since the day I met him! In fact, I even went so far as to write down my priorities on a post-it affixed to my closet door. Each morning and night I'm reminded. It's helping, but doesn't make it easy. It's definitely a process, but I just have to push through and be disciplined.

I'd love to hear from you - Have you ever "taken stock" of your life? Do you know what your 3 priorities are?

Editing, editing, editing

I'm back! and I'm back with a new focus.

This might seem counter-intuitive since I'm making a commitment to writing on this blog more frequently. In fact, I'm thinking of not making this such a dissertation oriented blog, but seeing how it might evolve as something different... not sure what that might be, but I'm just going to again, let this organically evolve into what it will!

In a future post I'll get to the heart of my absence from here, how I needed to realign my priorities and frankly, what's been going on. But for now, I'm spending this gorgeous Saturday inside dissertating and making some progress.

Goal for today: finish editing chapter 6

As I'll delve into more detail later, one of my biggest issues is my writing and, perhaps more accurately, my editing. I'm GREAT at editing other people's work. Just ask my students who probably wished I would have been a little easier on them regarding their syntax and grammar. However, when it comes to my own work, I come up short.

I turned in a draft on my dissertation to my advisor on Feb 13th. It was a Valentine's Day miracle and I was so thrilled. I knew there would be edits, but I was convinced it was a solid draft. BOY WAS I WRONG... more details on that later. Anyway, I decided to take a week off of work and go up to Syracuse for a week-long/marathon writing workshop with my advisor. He was patient, if not always kind. But his guidance was beyond helpful and left me with a few tricks that I wanted to share here as I work towards my big goal of completing this damn thing!

• Read out loud as you edit

Now this can be tricky because this is what I did. I read it out loud and literally raced through each line. I didn't take the time to read out loud. So my advice on this age old editing trick: be slow, deliberate and digest what you're reading aloud. You might feel a fool, but it's a lot better than feeling like an idiot for writing something that you didn't mean.

• Make sure each sentence/paragraph flows from the one before

This is perhaps the most obvious thing a writer can do, but it's a common problem with writing a dissertation. There are so many things we want to say that it's hard to get a good flow going and make sure that everything is connected. In my case, I'm using different disciplines to explain a reality TV narrative device: social science theories and humanities. Therefore, going in between these two research paradigms gets muddled, unfocused and confusing. So, it's up to me to make sure it all connects. It's important to understand why and how all these various points I'm making are connected. Each sentence I edit I think (and often say aloud), "how does this connect to the previous sentence? what is the point of using this sentence? what does it achieve? how does it relate to my overall argument?" Then as I finish a paragraph I make sure it flows naturally into the next one. Then once all the sentences are written, I re-read them (aloud!) to make sure everything is connected. If it doesn't contribute to my argument or doesn't flow, I either fix it or get rid of it.

• "Get in, make your point, and get out!" BT (my advisor)

Wow, yeah, this is a major problem for me. As you might have noticed, I have a hard time "making a point." Making declarative sentences is not part of my writing style. I hem and haw, I use meaningless words to get to what I think I might maybe want to say. See? Making a point is easier to do when you don't have meaningless words in a sentence. I deleted lots and lots of "it's important to note" and "It could be said" and other flimsy phrases.

• Proof read carefully

 I am embarrassed to admit that I turned in a draft of my entire dissertation to my advisor with a ridiculous amount of typos! Example: manor of speaking. Really, CJ, manor? Like where a lord lives? I was humiliated during our writing workshop when my advisor got to some of my more ridiculous gaffes. I deserved the ridicule.  So, my lesson learned: when I think I'm done proofreading, I sleep on it and proofread again! Hopefully the 5th time's a charm.

So, any other tips out there for editing? I'm hoping today is as productive as I need it to be. I'm off to rock chapter 6.